CHAPTER IV

SALT WATER

POEMS, breathed by the sun into material form, the Scillies rose from the summer depths of blue and iridescent marble. There was little of earth about the islands; even the hills had the curve of a wave; on the western rocks white sand rifted through the grass. The sleepiest July, stirring amid the clover, could never rid the air of a strong and pleasant saltness; while the ice-plants, breaking in flames of rose between the colder stones, had much about them of the sea anemones. A miniature continent, many-regioned, set, circlewise, about a space of water ever an intimate reflection of the outer tide, each island was so separate, so individual in atmosphere, that an ocean might have divided one from another rather than an iris pool.

Untouched by any spirit of historical antiquity they breathed freshness; as though,

a bubble on the lips of the sea, each had been blown to reality that morning; so new in colour it was strange they neither drifted nor took flight, seagull-wise, beyond the horizon, yet full of a primaeval oldness as if, with no intervening dream, Phoenician merchants might return to trade and fill the harbour with their anchored ships.

Nancy plunged her shrimping net into the sedge, swayed back and forth by the tide as grass is moved with a windy day. Fernfringed seaweed, glistening with pods, trailed amber about the edges of the rocks. Water whirled past her, stilled into pools; weed and sea flower, strange in shape and colour, hid the shelving sand floor with their roots. In the slow heavy push of the net she came near to the heart of the sea, glad with the very stinging of its salt. Now a crab was lifted, tearing at the mesh with tough brown claws; now shrimps and jelly-fish silted into the bottom of the bag. Gulls, whiter than sea-froth, drifted towards a wave with pointed wings. Spray broke about the further islands. All was

movement, all was life.

Salt water and the sun began to burn away her silence. She must write; an imperious need of expression was upon her. She was

torn from dream only to feel desire flood back upon herself. What was there but her own development she could fit with words, days of epic infancy, childhood broken by a frozen bondage this solitude of years among her books, with wavering hope for company, it might be ended by adventure? The books she longed to write must still be put aside lest she should mar them with immaturity. It was false to write of emotions her mind had not experienced. She must see, she must know, before creation were possible. Yet it was hard to stay for a future that was so slow of waking; hard to return to Scilly, summer after summer, and mark another year as barren of achieve

ment.

Thin sand shifted about her feet as she climbed beyond the shore to the first hollow rough with bracken and a clump of heather. The evening, at least, would bring her a new experience, for if the weather held they would go by moonlight to scratch for lances on Pellistree beach. She emptied her basket on to the nearest rock. It was something to feel the sun, to watch the sea.

The lance hooks jangled in the darkness. Nancy followed the others up the road, knowing

she was a boy. A clock had long ago struck ten in the clear Scillonian air. The black stems of scattered masts were lit by gold buds. It

an hour of childhood recaptured and fulfilled. The moon was hidden; no one spoke.

It was strange to feel the short clover underfoot, to tread on sleeping flowers. Moths were blown from shadow to shadow, white rhythms of orchard petals till their wings touched earth. The sense of night, new, lovely, intangible, made mystery of the hedge. Even the air filled with a sudden richness, the scent of slumbering grass.

The whole island seemed to have changed its shape with a single hour. Sleeping birds in the darkness, rocks drifted into the water beyond the open bay. Far in the distance a light flickered and was still over sand colourless in its coldness, neither white nor faded gold, rather tinged as a star struggling between the crinkled edges of a cloud.

Nancy stepped over the chill pebbles of the beach, waded along a thread of pools, plunged her lance hook firmly in the sand. Tiny phosphorescent stars were flung burning on to the cold shore, a sudden shiver of silver missed her hands. It was her first adventure

with night; a strange, a wonderful experience, full of the mingled dream and reality she desired.

A trail of seaweed fell across her feet with sudden warmth. A lance quivered in her sandy fingers; the bay flashed with the silver of leaping fish. The baskets filled. Out on the boulders which kept no thought of earth Nancy touched the freshness of the sea, elemental, sharp as it had been to the fisher folk who, before history, tore shells from the rocks and plunder from the sedge.

Her own hands were thick with oil, crusted with salt and sand. The tide turned. Water surged over the crumbling stones. She stood erect, looking seawards for a last time before they left the beach. Gold heart of a white and open rose, the moon rifted the petals of the clouds.

Hugh Town was asleep when they returned. The clock struck three in an air heavy with peacefulness. There was no wind; no ripples broke the silence of the waves. Hot with rebellion Nancy opened the window of her room, reluctant to leave night, loved for the first time, eager to touch the darkness, to keep the softness of it near her face. In an hour dawn would rise; iris morning would chisel the What waste it was to sleep.

hills with gold.